


Stick Around Now, It May Show

by louciferish



Series: YOI tumblr shorts [7]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dating, Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, Summer of mutual pining, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: For the prompt, "times Victor and Yuuri tried and failed to ask each other out during Summer of Mutual Pining".Minako takes what’s left of his beer and slides a water across the counter instead before he can protest. “Next time, try asking Yuuri out somewhere without any of his family members lurking around.”





	Stick Around Now, It May Show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adrianna99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrianna99/gifts).



> Thanks for the cute suggestion, Addy!

So far, Victor’s trip to Japan has taught him a great deal about failure. It’s a very new experience, and it’s left a mark in more ways than one. Even as it hurts, he finds himself thrilling at the challenge. He’d come here looking for a change in his patterns, and he’s gotten his wish.

He also came here for Yuuri, and that’s part of this whole failure problem. 

Once he’d gotten past the first sting of rejection, he was happy to pick up the gauntlet Yuuri threw him and accept that getting his new student to open up was going to test him more than expected. 

He can still see Yuuri in his mind, flushed with champagne and clinging to Victor’s shoulders. He’d expected this adventure to come easily. Yuuri had begged him to come, after all.

And yet, here he is, sleeping alone. Twice already he’s tried to ask Yuuri out, only to be dismissed both times.

After a third attempt ends in another failure, he winds up half-sprawled across the bar at Minako’s, watching the foam pop and settle in his beer. 

“Minako-sensei,” he sighs. “Why won’t Yuuri ever come out with me?”

Minako stops wiping the bar top around him and hovers, staring down straight into his eyes. “Well, how have you been asking?”

“ _Yuuuuuri,_ ” Victor slurs in a parody of his own voice. “ _Come out and have a drink with me tonight!_ ” 

Minako puts her hand over her face and shakes her head down at him. “Victor, that’s never going to work,” she says. “I’ve told you Yuuri doesn’t come here. He doesn’t really drink to begin with, and besides - would _you_ want to go on a date with your childhood ballet teacher watching the whole time?”

Lilia’s severe face springs immediately to the backs of Victor’s eyelids. No. He would not enjoy that.

Minako takes what’s left of his beer and slides a water across the counter instead before he can protest. “Next time, try asking Yuuri out somewhere without any of his family members lurking around.”

It’s good advice. Victor flips the idea over in his head as he dutifully sips on his water. Hopefully he’ll remember it in the morning.

-

He tries to play it cool as he watches Yuuri unlace his skates after practice the next day. Yakov’s warned him more than a few times not to come on too strong. He needs to approach Yuuri with caution.

“Say, Yuuri,” he begins, sidling up to the bench beside his target. “Would you join me for dinner tonight?”

“Of course I will,” Yuuri says. “We eat dinner together _every_ night.”

“No, not in the dining hall,” Victor protests. “I mean somewhere different. Let’s go out to eat!”

Yuuri’s eyes light up as he hefts his bag onto his shoulder, but then he slumps. “My diet,” he murmurs regretfully.

Victor waves away his concerns. “It’s fine. Call it a cheat day.” The urge to lean into Yuuri’s space is irresistible. Even his post-practice sweat smells tempting, sharp and warm. “Come cheat with me, Yuuri.”

A rosy pink tint stains Yuuri’s cheeks, but he nods. “I guess if my coach says it’s okay…” he says with a teasing smile. Oh, he looks so huggable right now. Victor smiles back, but resists. One thing at a time.

-

Dinner is going well - maybe. It’s been a while since his last date, and none of the others were like this. None of the others were with _Yuuri_. But he thinks it’s working.

Yuuri had looked surprised when Victor lead him past Nagahama Ramen and through the winding streets to Cafe Aomi, but he seemed happy to be there once they got inside. 

Victor had been thinking about what Minako said. It was hard to get away from the prying eyes of the Hasetsu townsfolk, but at least here they’d be out of the way. He’d even asked Mari to call ahead for a reservation, and as soon as they walked in the waiter lead them back to the most private table in the cramped restaurant.

Victor even pulled out Yuuri’s chair for him.

The food is delicious, as everything Victor’s tried in Japan has been so far, but he makes sure to pause midway through slurping his noodles. “This is good,” he says mournfully. “But I like Hiroko-san’s cooking better.”

Yuuri smiles down at his bowl. Compliments to his mom’s cooking are one of his great weaknesses. “You’re the one who wanted to go out,” he says. 

His tone is scolding, but playful, and Victor thrills a little to hear it. Playful Yuuri is one of his many favorite Yuuris.

“But we have much more privacy here,” Victor says. It’s a risk, but he slides his hand out to the center of the table as he speaks, then turns it palm up, inviting.

Yuuri doesn’t take it. Victor’s heart sinks. Did he not notice, or was he just not ready? Impossible to say. Either way, he takes the hint and returns his hand to his lap. Things _are_ going well, even if Yuuri doesn’t want to hold hands.

As they finish their meal in comfortable silence, the waiter approaches again, refilling their drinks. Victor’s still behind on his Japanese, so he doesn’t understand more than a couple words of what Yuuri says to the waiter.

He does, however, understand what it means when the man comes back with two separate checks.

“Oh,” Victor says, reaching for Yuuri’s receipt. “I was going to pay for both.”

Yuuri pulls back, holding the slip of paper just out of his reach while fumbling in his pockets for crumpled bills. “I can’t let you do that,” he says. “After all, it’s bad enough I’m not paying you coaching fees.”

“But I asked you out,” Victor mumbles. If Yuuri hears him, he doesn’t acknowledge it, and Victor feels his hopes sink to somewhere in the vicinity of his shoes. Stupid. He should have been more clear. Yuuri doesn’t seem to have known it was a date.

At least, that’s what Victor tells himself. The possibility that he did know, and he isn’t interested? That idea is much, much worse.

They pay their checks and leave together. The night is peaceful all around them, the warmth of summer still radiating from the ground beneath their feet as Victor slips his hands into his pockets. They follow the main road back to Yu-topia until Victor stops, lingering in the street outside the entrance.

Yuuri walks ahead for a bit before he notices that Victor is no longer beside him and turns back. His skin is golden in the soft starlight. Victor looks away. 

“Go on back without me,” he says. “I think I’ll stop into Minako’s for a while.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

Victor doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t turn around. In the end, he has a date with a bottle after all.

-

Aside from the hangover the next day, Victor tries not to let it affect him. He turns up for practice in the morning, just the same. He and Yuuri still eat dinner together with the family most nights, go for runs and walk Makkachin on the beach, and when Victor’s traitorous heart starts beating too fast without the excuse of practice, he learns to ignore it. 

He’s become used to it so quickly that, by the time Yuuri approaches him after practice on Friday, flushed from exertion, it’s second nature to kick his feelings right where it hurts and then shove them aside.

Yuuri’s hair is still a wreck, longer strands glued to his forehead. He shoves his glasses up his nose and then rubs at the strap of his bag, worrying the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. 

“You know, Victor,” he says quietly, staring down at the worn tile floor of the Ice Castle. “I had a good time last week, at dinner.”

“Did you?” Victor asks, as if he never cared. “Good. It’s important to take breaks and treat yourself sometimes too.”

“I’ve been thinking, well, maybe we could do it again?” The question spills from Yuuri’s lips as if the words are tripping over one another to get out. 

It hurts. Victor’s driven down heartbreak lane before. He knows it’s one thing to stumble across it and another thing entirely to take this turn willingly, knowing there’s nothing at the end but a brick wall.

He does it anyway. “Sure,” he tells Yuuri.

It seems inevitable that he’d end up back here.

-

It’s weird. It’s been weird from the moment they arrived. Yuuri chose the same restaurant, where the same waiter leads them back to the same table. As Victor reaches for his chair, Yuuri jostles against him, their hands overlapping on the high wooden back.

Victor pulls away first, and Yuuri, flustered, slides into his own chair. 

As if the echoes of the previous week weren’t strange enough, Yuuri orders sake. He’s _drinking_ , matching Victor glass for glass casually, as if he does this every night. A bright red rose blooms in his cheeks, but whether it’s the heat of the nearby kitchens or the alcohol, Victor can’t say.

The conversation is stilted. Yuuri fumbles over his tongue as well as his fingers, spills his water glass across their table, and apologizes to the waiter in at least four languages. Victor didn’t even know he spoke Spanish. 

This time, when the waiter comes to check in on them, it’s Victor who speaks up. He only has to look down at his phone to check the translation twice as he carefully requests that they pay separately. 

When he looks up, Yuuri is pale.

“What is it?” Victor asks. “Too much to drink?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “Excuse me,” he whispers. His chair groans as he gets up, sliding out to escape to the restroom.

Victor buries his face in his hands, nevermind that his elbows are on the table. It’s been months now, and Yuuri Katsuki is still a mystery to him. Just when he thought they’d settled into a routine, there was today, and suddenly Yuuri was nervous around him like it was week one all over again - clumsy, flustered, _drinking_ , and what on earth is going on with his sudden departure? Had Victor somehow upset him by asking for the-

Oh.

Asking for separate checks.

Even as he’d done the same thing a week ago, Victor hadn’t noticed the symptoms until now. Yuuri hadn’t bumped into his chair or gotten confused when they arrived. He’d been trying to pull out Victor’s chair for him, like Victor had done. Because this was a date. Yuuri had been asking him on a _date_.

Victor is still trying to decide what to do about that when Yuuri reappears beside the table. “Ready to go home?” he asks. His hair is slicked back from his face, and his glasses are missing, revealing that the small smile he gives Victor won’t quite reach his eyes.

Still, Victor answers with a wide grin. He can’t help it. His heart is still beating a drum in his chest - _date, date, date, date_. He can’t form sensible words now, so he slides from his chair in answer and trails Yuuri to the door like Makka trotting after them on a walk. 

As they step out onto the street, the sound of loud laughter and familiar, friendly shouts echoes off the little buildings as the regulars at Minako’s bar spill into the alleys. 

Yuuri shakes his head. “Should we part ways here?” he asks. 

His voice is still flat, and it’s painful to hear. Victor knows exactly what that feels like, and the fact that Yuuri, right now, doesn’t have hope and happiness bubbling up inside him in the same way Victor does is criminal.

Before Yuuri can walk away, Victor catches his hand and pulls it swiftly to his lips. The kiss he presses to Yuuri’s knuckles is still soft, unsure of its welcome, but Victor smiles against his skin as Yuuri turns, the color returning to his cheeks as Victor watches.

“Thank you,” Victor says, lips brushing Yuuri’s hand again with each quiet word. “It’s been the most perfect date.”

An answering smile dawns slowly over Yuuri’s face, then grows into a wide grin. Victor’s helpless to stop himself from answering it. 

It’s the only warning he gets before Yuuri throws himself forward, almost leaping into Victor’s arms. He catches Yuuri tightly and holds him in return, squeezing his lithe body close even as his heart threatens to escape his chest. 

They stay like that for quite some time, heedless of the laughter and teasing of the townspeople stumbling past, unwilling to part now that they’ve found their way to each other.


End file.
